Car Ride
by msjgatsby
Summary: Short outtake from 3x12 Dog Chases Car.


Just a short one shot I found in my file of projects. I thought it was funny. To be read as an outtake from 3x12 when Paige and Mike are driving to the shore to figure out what Briggs is up to.

* * *

"If you want to nap or something, I don't mind. I'm good to drive." Mike says as he presses the button to turn on the engine and looks behind him to back out, careful not to look over in Paige's direction in the passenger seat.

"Wow. You really don't want to talk to me." Paige calls him out on his false kindness.

"No! No, it's not that. I just figured if you haven't been sleeping recently you might want to-" Mike tries to cover, but she already knows.

He's terrified of talking to her recently. They've gone so long without talking that he doesn't know how to talk to her anymore. He can't even look at her. Not after the drugs. Not after she saw him that weak. She may have hated him before, but she pities him now and that to Mike is a thousand times worse. Talking to her used to be so easy, but now there was so much they weren't saying that even though they were back on speaking terms, nothing was being said.

"Why would you think I haven't been sleeping?" Her voice is defensive and sharp, like most of the things she says to Mike these days.

' _Because I know you, and I know you're still having nightmares about Sylmar, Lena and the fact you just beheaded a guy in our living room two days ago. Plus, you get really crabby when you don't sleep'_ , Mike thinks to himself, instead he says, "No reason."

They sit in tense silence for another mile until Mike can't take it anymore, and he reaches over to turn on the radio.

" _I thought that I've been hurt before,  
_ _But no one's ever left me quite this sore.  
_ _Your words cut deeper than a knife.  
_ _Now I need someone to breathe me back to life.  
_ _Got a feeling that I'm going under,  
_ _But I know that I'll make it out alive,  
_ _If I quit calling you my lover,  
_ _And move on…"_

"Maybe I should change the station." Paige says nervously.

"No it's fine." Mike insists, trying to keep a calmness in his voice and his eyes on the road even as his knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.

The music helps soothe his nerves even though he's never heard the song before. The radio has to beat whatever awkward silence they otherwise might indulge in, the lyrics weren't ideal but if they don't acknowledge the awkwardness, it will pass. It's just a stupid song. It can only last another two minutes and thirty seconds.

" _...and now that I'm without your kisses, I'll be needing stitches."_

"Changing it!" Mike quickly announces as he reaches out to punch the button, as he can no longer allow the pop singer to narrate his life.

The familiar chords of an Adele song fill the car as Mike relaxes back in his seat. If this were a few months ago, Paige would have sang along loudly and offkey just to make him laugh. Now she just stares distractedly out the window while mindlessly tapping to the beat on her knee. Mike considers attempting for a truce by singing jokingly to her once the words come back, but the idea chokes him when the singing starts again and with horror he remembers what the lyrics are…

" _But there's a side to you  
_ _That I never knew, never knew.  
_ _All the things you'd say  
_ _They were never true, never true,  
_ _And the games you play  
_ _You would always win, always win.  
_ _But I set fire-"_

This time Paige is the one who reaches out to change the station. The music screeches to a halt as a car commercial comes on instead, and Mike can tell Paige is considering leaving it there, but she hits the button one more time and it falls on a country station.

" _Look what this girl done did to me,  
_ _She done cut me off from a good, good love.  
_ _She told me that those days were gone,  
_ _Now I'm sitting here going half crazy  
_ _'Cause I know she still thinks about me too,  
_ _And there ain't no way in hell, that I can be just friends with you."_

Mike and Paige both reach out to change the station at the exact same time, and their fingers brush. Mike jerks his hand back like he's been burned. It's been so long since he felt her touch. The lyrics continue to float hauntingly in the background,

" _And I wish we never did it.  
_ _And I wish we never loved-"_

The lyrics propel Paige to overcome her momentary hesitation and her fingers continue on to change the station before she quickly pulls her arm back to the safety of her side of the seat. She should have just kept her hand where it was though, because the next song that blares through the radio may be the worst one yet.

" _They try to make me go to rehab and I'm like no, no, no."_

"Just turn it off!" Mike finally barks, and Paige quickly presses the button and silence fills the car once again.

The music has called to attention all the problems that now seem floating in the stale air of the car. The way Paige betrayed him by giving his name to Sid. His betrayal to her of lying and burning Lena. The fact that neither knows how to go back to being friends after what they shared, no matter how brief. Mike's drug dependency.

Despite the heat emanating off the street, Mike rolls down his window, hoping that the songs will disappear out the window with the air conditioning.

"How much longer until we're there?" Paige asks.

"Still an hour fifty." Mike mumbles, his ears tinged pink.

Suffocating silence fills the car again.

"So... seen any good movies recently?" Mike grasps for anything to make this car ride bearable.

"That's it. We're putting on a podcast." Paige decides.


End file.
